Is everyone weird?

After three months of a hopeful re-entry into dating life -- Internet, setups, chance meetings -- I had to hang it up. It had started out just fine. Possibilities were popping up
with flash-frame, Internet-inspired regularity and, suddenly, my 40s had seemed inspired by the twinkling of new romance opportunities.

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There was the crazy writer and father of two who adored his sons, the straight-but-cute doctor who loved his work, the music producer who was quirky, brilliant and charming, and the extreme sports guy who pursued like a prince.

But just 12 weeks after starting down these promising paths, I had crawled back into the wallflower-solitude of my I'm-not-dating-anymore closet.

What sent me into high-security hiding was not the effort of dating.

I actually like that part. (Though, God knows, Internet dating can be a black hole of a cottage industry that consumes hours, the way "The Blob" consumed whole towns.) Time vortex noted, I still enjoy the newness of trying on new energies and the grace-filled possibilities inherent in dating new men.

But the problem is -- truly from my heart I have to say this -- everybody's weird. Everyone seems to have issues. And not just little issues, either.

And though I suppose we're all weird or skewed or tweaked or somewhat bent in some way or other -- especially after 40 -- it's still not a wise dating strategy to mistake those fabulously flowing bright-red-flags for a welcome parade.

So when the 40-ish, cha-cha-cha writer introduced me to his son, told me he was "playing for keeps," then casually mentioned that he was already sleeping with a woman in San Francisco, I felt it best to run for the hills.

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When the cute-but-straight-looking doctor (Dr. Drag-His-Feet, my girlfriends dubbed him) picked me up in his Ferrari, told me for the ninth unsolicited time that he wasn't gay and announced that he was looking for a woman who looked like Kate Beckinsale, I felt it best to stop going to the hardware store for milk. The boy didn't have the goods.

When the music producer, the extreme sports guy, the guy from my friend's softball game and the date who said he was 5- foot-10 but was really 5-foot-5 each in turn revealed what was weird enough to read "STOP! WARNING!" -- I just lost my will to work at this, threw in the towel and gave up.

I'm not saying (and how dull to take such a stance at this point, anyway?) that every man in L.A. is weird. I could certainly make a case for royally weird and skewed women in this town, too. But what happens when I'm drawing one slightly awry (all right, bent) experience after the other? Is it me? Is it them? Is it just that one has to sift through a lot of dross to get to the one gleaming, precious stone?

I'd love to say that this is an L.A. thing. But who cares? This is where I live. I'm not one to denigrate my town (which I like for the most part), nor one to take the God-looking-down stance of "Yes, my child, there's partnering available for everyone -- but not for you fools that try to date in L.A."

But here's the rub: If I'm drawing man after man with twisted little "isms," I have to stop and ask myself why I keep attracting them. Damn them, but all of those seminar-inspired relationship books have actually made some impact on my psyche, and that well-themed what-you're-drawing-is-a-reflection-of-where-you're-at idea is totally haunting me.

So in the midst of the dating pool, I've had to step out, dry off, re-evaluate what I'm looking for, where I might find that and take a long, hard look at the messages I'm putting out.

It's my opinion that none of us who are single at 40 are rocket scientists at love (or we wouldn't be so uncomfortably solitary in the first place), so drawing the weird requires a little seaside introspection, a new charting of the waves and a definite refocusing of the ship's trajectory.

My ex-husband, when asked, will say that the reason he doesn't date is "everybody's got so much baggage that I just can't take it." And though that may be a middle-age, 21st-century realism that probably includes all of us, I still believe in love after 40.

My wise girlfriend likes to say, "We late bloomers get to have happy endings, too."

So as I prepare to check my own baggage on the shore and dive into the deep seas one more time, I pray for the courage (in a world of imminent land mines) to avoid the weird, and to believe that possibly in the process, I can find peace and happiness in the arms of the true, the solid, the faith-filled and the devoted.

May my late-bloomer happy-ending find me -- and find me soon.

JoAnneh Nagler is a freelance writer living in Los Angeles. She writes articles, philanthropic proposals and her folk-pop CD, "I Burn," is online at www.cdbaby.com.

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